LAS VEGAS, May 21 – Rael, founder of the International Raelian Movement (www.rael.org) has awarded Mordechai Vanunu the title of Honorary Guide of Humanity in recognition of his 25-year struggle for a nuclear-free Middle East.

Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician, leaked Israeli nuclear plans to a British media in 1986, thus exposing top secret information to the world. The Israeli government drugged, kidnapped and convicted Vanunu and then sent him to prison, where he spent most of his 18 years of incarceration in solitary confinement.

“All of this happened to him for working toward a non-nuclear world,” said Leon Mellul, Grand Rabbi for the Israeli Raelian Movement. “Vanunu is an exemplary human being. He has dedicated his entire adult life to peace at the risk of his own life. There are far too few people like him.”

Mellul said Rael has awarded the title “Honorary Guide of Humanity” to only a few people.

“Each Honorary Guide has dedicated his or her life to the betterment of humanity through selfless works, and often at great personal risk, as in Vanunu’s case,” Mellul said.

He then went on to explain the nature of the risk.

“Because Vanunu is so deeply committed to peace, he’s been trying for years to cancel his Israeli citizenship,” Melul explained. “He doesn’t want to be counted as a citizen of a country that uses nuclear technology for destructive purposes. But Israel recently passed a law authorizing revocation of Israeli citizenship for those who’ve been convicted of espionage and treason. So [on those grounds] Vanunu once again appealed to the Israeli government for revocation of his citizenship.”

Rael and the Raelian Movement have been soliciting people worldwide to demand the halt and destruction of all nuclear weapons. In addition, Raelians want a different calendar – one that marks the beginning of the Nuclear Age. (See icacci.org.)

“For 20 years, the Raelian Movement has been petitioning the United Nations to dump the traditional calendar based on Christian dates,” Mellul explained. “We want the UN to launch a new, international calendar that would recognize Aug. 6, 1945, as the very first day of Year One because that’s the date when nuclear energy was first used for destructive purposes, over Hiroshima.”

Mellul pointed out that for 37 years, Rael has been teaching that humanity entered into a crucial new era on that date.

“He says this is an age that will bring the end of humanity itself if we don’t master our violent tendencies,” Mellul said. “By revising the calendar, humanity would literally be reminded every day of the extreme need for complete, worldwide nuclear disarmament.”